Good morning Players!

I wanted to be the first to let you all know that the primary Feature list for Issue 13: Architect  is now live! That said, I’d like to take this opportunity to talk to you about some of the new features in more depth.

First off is the issue name, Architect. I liked the correlation that the name has between some of the improvements we are making to bases (in the way new things are purchased for them) and to our Mission Architect feature. Players can now be architects of their own story arcs that other players can play. When I first mentioned this system in the 4th Anniversary post, I had no idea how wildly popular that single concept would be. The thread that followed that post had a plethora of ideas of how such a system could, and should work from a player’s perspective.

With virtually no information to go on, some people very much underestimated what would be possible with the Mission Architect. Some got it spot on, and some people wanted features that were simply impossible to get into the system at launch. Even so, we are very proud of the system as it stands. Players can make their own story arcs using a customised version of the tool used by our mission writers, in some cases rivalling our own internal tools in ease-of-use. I am really looking forward to playing the stories you all create with this amazing tool!

I should probably take this moment to talk about what the Mission Architect is not meant for. It is not meant for “easy levelling”, “badging” or “farming”. Those are things that we specifically wanted the Mission Architect NOT to do. This may be a disappointment to some, I know. The goal was to give creative minds an outlet to tell the stories they have in their heads. We didn’t want the system clogged with Farm missions, so actually finding someone’s story that they lovingly crafted became more a chore than it was worth.

To that end, the Rewards in the Mission Architect are something we, ahem, discussed with raised voices time and time again. How much was too much? How little was too little? What limits needed to be put into place to stop farming? Should we even have such limits? Etc. In the end, we made a system that we believe is best suited for what the Mission Architect was made for, and made sure it cannot be abused. Time and testing will tell if that is really the case though. Like the Invention System, there will be many iterations on the Mission Architect to make sure we get it right before it goes to the Live servers.

Next I want to talk about Day Jobs. This started out as a kind of “secret identity” system, but we wanted to save the term Secret Identity for a system that fit that name better. Day Jobs works well because it is “what your character is doing when not being a Hero or a Villain”. It’s their “day job”. A character who logs out in the Hospital is assumed to be working in a medicinal capacity, and they will receive a themed bonus when they log back in, that sort of thing.  We even made it possible to have your character’s Day Job to be “On Patrol” or “Committing Crimes”, just in case you couldn’t envision your character having a “normal life” while you were not actively playing them.

There are plenty of other features in Issue 13: Architect as well, like the new powersets, including the much requested “Villainous Version of Empathy” called Pain Domination. We’re also adding some great new missions to Issue 12’s Roman Zone “Cimerora,” as well as a brand new reward system that will hopefully see the end of “necessary” Task Force farming trying to get that one specific Recipe you have been dying to get.  The Issue 13 Feature List explains more about that.  We’ll be announcing more specifics of each of these features between now and the beta testing for Issue 13.

Finally, I want to tell you about two “Booster Packs” that will be available in a month or so. Many players have requested the ability to buy the 30 day temporary jetpack that comes with the new City of Heroes Game Cards. Once the retailer exclusive period ends next month, we are making the same jetpack available for purchase for £2.99/€4.49. We are also excited to launch our Super Booster I: Cyborg Pack for £5.99/€8.99. This pack has an awesome set of costume pieces, emotes, auras and a power. We’ll be sharing all of the details shortly.

So thank you players for the enthusiastic support! I can’t wait to get these new features into your hands and to answer your questions about Issue 13 over the coming months and at Hero-Con in October.

Happy hunting!

Matt “Positron” Miller
Lead Designer, City of Heroes/Villains

ARCHITECT

MISSION ARCHITECT
First the City of Heroes Character Creator set a new standard for player creation and customisation. Now, Issue 13 takes another giant step, allowing players to design their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of Heroes community. Using an intuitive interface similar to the game’s detailed Character Creator, players can create missions from the ground up. Players will determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue, giving their stories nearly infinite depth and personalisation.

Among other rewards, authors and architects who create the most extraordinary content will garner acclaim and reputation. Community feedback will be paramount and some missions will elevate in status unlocking new rewards and benefits for their creators.

DAY JOBS (Offline Character Progression)
Scholar? Caregiver? City Official? Now when players log out of City of Heroes / Villains they’re just getting started! A character’s day job is determined by the actual in-game location from which he or she logs out. If players log out from a University, their day job is considered to be a Scholar. If they log out from City Hall, they’re a City Official. The benefits are thematically appropriate to the location. For example, a City Official earns extra Influence, a Scholar is granted Salvage, a Caregiver is granted Health Regeneration Buffs, etc.

Once characters have accumulated the required amount of time for each Day Job, they are rewarded with the appropriate Day Job Badge and Title, increasing their “earnings” for that job. Multiple Badges can be combined to unlock Accolades and the ability to accumulate additional new rewards. Almost every location within Paragon City and the Rogue Isles has an associated Day Job, resulting in a huge selection of jobs and rewards!

NEW POWERSETS

• Shields – Heft a Shield for Heroic or Villainous Ends!  This new powerset brings a classic power to City of Heroes: Shields!  Now, you can arm Tankers, Scrappers and Brutes with a powerful shield to protect both themselves and their allies.
• Pain Domination – Villains can now bend the power of pain to serve their own ends!  Those playing a Corruptor or Mastermind have access to this new powerset.  The antithesis of the Hero healing powerset “Empathy,” Pain Domination brings parity between Heroes and Villains with a distinctively evil flair.

NEW CIMERORA MISSIONS
New Hero and Villain story arcs expand upon the history and lore, and delve into the players and politics of Cimerora.

THE MERIT REWARDS SYSTEM
A new game system that allows players to earn tokens by completing Trials, Task Forces, Strike Forces, Raids, etc. The most challenging and time consuming tasks grant the most reward tokens, which can be redeemed throughout Hero and Villain zones for recipes, enhancements, salvage, costume pieces, badges, inspirations and other game items.

Other features include new Invention Origin Sets, new Costume Sets, a Patron Power Respec, Zone Refinements, and much more!

Issue 13: Architect will bring the much-anticipated Mission Architect, which will allow players to create their own missions and story arcs to share with the community. Other new features include two new powersets, new Cimerora missions, a new Merits rewards system and a new Day Jobs system which will allow characters to continue earning rewards whilst offline.

For all the details on Issue 13: Architect, read the announcement and then head over to read Positron’s Issue 13 address.

City of Heroes community member and Player vs Player enthusiast Knight Stalker has been busy putting together a PvP tournament based on the Super Summer Slam Spectacular run in 2005. X4: The Evolution will feature a modified Pentad format and two divisions: Level 40 Cruiserweight and Level 21 Featherweight.

For all the details on the tournament structure and rules, please see this forum thread. Best of luck to all who enter!

COMBINED

Chat

• Fix for rare bug that caused erroneous “wrong number of parameters” message to spam repeatedly in global chat.
• Global Chat Channels will now reflect who initiated any Operator actions.

Enhancements

• Traded combined Hamidon Enhancements (i.e. marked with a “+” or “++”) will now retain their Combined “+” or “++” attributes when traded.

Gameplay

• Addressed a client-side crash where players would sometimes get a “Base.Power.Not.Found” error message and crash, when the “Stop sending all buffs” option was enabled.

Powers

• Eliminated “pause” times from Claws attack animations. Most attacks activate more quickly now (Eviscerate is slightly longer.) Additionally, a balancing algorithm has been applied to the damage of the attacks. In most cases, this means the attacks will do slightly more damage, though for Focus, it means slightly less damage overall.
• Fire Imps should now be “pushable” by players.
• Ice Control / Ice Slick: This power now states in its short help that it has a -Jump component.
• Sonic Attack / Screech: This power can now be slotted with range enhancements.
• Sonic Attack / Shockwave: This power will no longer erroneously state that it reduces the target’s resistance.
• Removed Graphical FX on auto powers granted from mayhem missions.
• Earth Control / Animate Stone: Reduced Animate Stone’s Seismic Smash’s hold magnitude from 4 to 3 and reduced the frequency in which the hold will be triggered from 100% to 66%

Rewards

• Flashback story arcs will now correctly grant their end story arc rewards once every 30 minutes.

User Interface

• Players will no longer be able to select Supergroup settings when their character is dead. This was done to correct an issue where the keyboard became non-responsive after the Supergroup settings were accessed.

Tasks

• Fixed bug in some office maps that would sometimes make it impossible to complete ‘Defeat All’ missions (for example: mission 5 of the Ice Mistral Strike Force)

CITY of VILLAINS

Powers

Masterminds

• Mastermind pets will now keep their names when defeated and resummoned.

Aion fully playable! A packed show schedule! Quests for great prizes! It’s not enough – we’re going even further with our activities at Games Convention – we’re going fully multimedia!

Even if you can’t make it to Leipzig, carry on reading - we’re going the extra mile to allow you to experience the Games Convention, even if you’re just looking at your web browser. Here’s our list of special multimedia features coming direct from the show floor:

The Official NCE International Podcast
Each day we’ll be hosting a live show in English from our stage, dedicated to all our international guests and the fans who couldn’t come to the show. Staff members from NCsoft Europe (and maybe some special surprise guests) will be on stage interviewing our guests, and questions from members of the audience. Questions and answers will be in English so that everyone from outside Germany will be able to understand them, too. (Of course every German speaker is also welcome at the stage. It’s a good chance to practice your English skills a bit.)

Best of all, every show will be recorded and the audio will make up a series of special podcasts, which will feed into the Official NCsoft Europe Podcast and let you all take part in the excitement. Make sure that you don’t miss a single episode and subscribe to the podcast before the first day of the show.

The Official NCE ‘Vodcast’
Similar to the podcast we will provide you with a ‘vodcast’ (or ‘video-podcast’) and show you video material recorded each day. See just what was going on (and what you might have missed) on our booth. Episodes will be available at the end of each day on blip.tv or via iTunes - just click here to subscribe.

Twitter-Feed
Those of you who are regularly visiting our Community sections on the official websites of Aion: The Tower of Eternity might have noticed that each member of our community team has their own Twitter feed there. To get the most out of this feeds you can follow them using Twitter and receive updates (and send your own updates) with your mobile phone or reply/comment on their postings. (Ayase’s feed, Atreid’s feed, Amboss’ feed).

During the show we will support all three feeds. Become a follower and stay up to date (e.g. be informed about the schedule).
Some mobile phones let you read Twitter in a web browser or special applications (like Twitterrific for the iPhone and iPod touch) might make it even easier for you to follow the feeds.

And here’s a special bonus for everyone who has to stay at home and is worried about not being able to win a slot in the Aion Exclusive Preview at the show. While you will still get your chance to win at other events and eventually via a general sign-up process, if you follow our Twitter feeds during the show you can earn your slot then and take part when the preview starts in 2009 – it’s just as if you were there.

Twitter lets you reply to messages and this is what you have to do. Each day we will ask you a short question in each of the Twitter feeds (English, French and German) and telling you that if you reply to the message (’@aion_en [answer]’) with the correct answer you can win your slot. We will then contact the winner via direct message in Twitter and ask for their email address to send them the notification later.

Important: You need to be a follower (create your own account, visit our feeds and ‘become a follower’) to be able to receive direct messages from us.

There will be fifteen slots given away in total. One each day per Twitter feed. They’re rare, but you can have a chance even if you’re not at the show - go for it!

Please note: The slots are for the Exclusive Preview in Europe only. Please keep in mind that if you’re not living in Europe your game experience might be different due to technical reasons. Watch the US Aion website for information about how to get slots for the Exclusive Preview in the US. For example, if you attend the Penny Arcade Expo you can win slots for this preview there.

MMS
There are a lot of screens on our booth but none is as big as our main screen, right above the stage. We’ve set up an MMS system which will allow you and your friends to appear there and show everyone that you’re fans of our products. Simply take a picture of you and maybe some of your friends on our stand and send an MMS message with the subject ‘Leipzig’ to ‘44444’. This is your chance to become a hero and immortalize yourself on our booth - ok, not quite… but it’s good fun!

Bluetooth extras
Activate any device which supports file transfer via Bluetooth (e.g. your mobile phone) and you will receive extra material when inside our Bluetooth network on our stand, including exclusive video content… you never know who might pop up on your phone!

Internet live stream from showfloor
You can keep up with the action by following our live streaming video from the convention here. We won’t be streaming live all the time but if you miss a live segment you will be able to watch them recorded afterwards on the same site.

Our community team has been working to create an official City of Heroes page on Facebook where you can receive news feeds, share images and videos with the community, and stay in touch with all your heroic and villainous friends.

You can even create a “Masked” profile to hide your secret identity, a place to put your Hero or Villain’s character profile and connect to other Heroes and Villains… a way to share and promote the game to your mild mannered friends on Facebook. So come and join us, you never know who you might run into!

City of Heroes players who come to the Games Convention in Leipzig (or the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle) this month are in store for a special treat!

We’ll be giving away exclusive codes for a new costume power: The PPD hardsuit!

How do you get it? Well, simply seek out a community representative of your choice (GhostRaptor, Palladium, Avatea or Kerensky) at the NCsoft booth and ask them kindly. Please note that codes given out at European conventions only work on EU accounts.

If you want to know more about these events, either check out all our announcements or have a look at teh convention websites:

• Games Convention (20th - 24th August 2008)
  
• Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) (28th - 31st August 2008)

We look forward to seeing you there!

We now accept PayPal as a payment option for all digital code purchases made through the PlayNC store (not for subscriptions or NCcoin) for the UK and Germany. The PayPal payment option will show up beneath the Credit Card payment option and will require you to log into your PayPal account to complete the transaction. If you have any questions about this new payment option, please visit the Support Center for help.

COMBINED NOTES

Chat

• Fixed an issue where a player would not receive tells or see team chat messages as they were zoning.

Invention

• Stupefy: Chance for Knockback: This recipe’s description should now be consistent with the enhancement’s description, describing both as being knockback not knockdown.

• Gaussian’s Synchronized Fire-Control should now properly be a Unique enhancement.

• Location targeted powers slotted with Pacing of the Turtle, Dark Watcher’s Despair or Induced Coma enhancement sets chance for -recharge will no longer affect the caster.

• Fixed several typos in IO Set enhancement descriptions which stated “this enhancement my be”, which should have been “this enhancement may be.”

• Set bonuses that state they increase “Movement Speed” will now boost the base movement of the character instead of enhancing movement speed boosting powers.

Powers

• Fire Control / Cinders - This power was allowing for range enhancements even though it’s a PBAoE power, this has been corrected. Cinders can no longer be slotted for range enhancements.

• Updated info description of Minotaurs.

• The Omega Device is no longer targetable by players

• Plant Control/Entangle: This power will now correctly knock flying targets out of the air only if they are close to the ground.

• Plant Control/Roots: This power will now correctly knock flying targets out of the air only if they are close to the ground.

• The Warburg Nuke Chemical Burn power now correctly states that it reduces the target’s defense and not accuracy in its long help.

• Adjusted the animation for Energy Transfer.

Tasks

• Ouroboros missions will now issue a gold star and the proper badge upon completion

Badges and Accolades

• Changed the name of the badge granted from Flashback challenges by buffing enemies from Valorous to Fearless.

• Demonic Aura and Eye of the Magus: These powers had their short help changed. They previously stated these powers had a self debuff, however this was incorrect. The erroneous data in the short help was removed.

Compatibility

• Resolved issue of certain geometry displaying black textures with Nvidia GeForce 8+ series video cards.

Gameplay

• Fixed rare crash when rapidly transferring salvage to Base Storage.

• Fixed rare crash when chatting in a Supergroup channel.

CITY of HEROES

Powers

Blasters

• Blasters / Psychic Blast / Psionic Dart - This power’s long help should now accurately state that this power deals moderate damage.

• Blasters / Psychic Blast / Mental Blast - This power’s long help should now accurately state that this power deals high damage.

• Blasters Secondary Powers now give the correct Defiance Bonus. Honest.

Defenders

• Cold Domination/Heat Loss: The endurance recovery buff portion of this power was granting ten times greater recovery than was intended. This has been corrected.

Scrappers

• Martial Arts/Dragon’s Tail: Corrected the critical hit portion of this power so that it is equal to the power’s normal damage.

Peacebringers

• All Peacebringer attacks that have a -def component will now show the debuff defense effects.

• Luminous Blast/Radiant Strike: This power’s long help stated it dealt high damage, this was corrected to state that it deals Superior damage.

Warshades

• Warshades / Umbral Aura / Eclipse: Use of inspirations of damage buffs will no longer increase the resistance granted by this power.

CITY of VILLAINS

Powers

Arachnos Soldiers

• Bane Spider Armor Upgrade should no longer have brief “double application” of the Health bonus applied. This means you won’t have your Max health fluctuating any longer.

• Wide Area Webgrenade: This power should now have target and caster hit messages.

Brutes

• Super Reflexes/Evasion: The brute version of this power will no longer have its defense affected by attacker’s level.

• Brute Invulneraiblity/Invincibility: This power was generating substantially more threat than was intended. It has been brought down to generate a similar amount of threat as generated by a tanker.

Masterminds

• Masterminds / Ninjas / Call Genin - Removed Quiver FX from Mastermind Genin pets when upgraded.

• Improved damage of Mastermind Genin Shuriken powers. They now recharge more slowly, and take slightly more endurance, as well.

• Mastermind Ninja Jounin should work as they did with I12 Launch—all changes to their AI since have been reverted out.

• The Ouroboros Portal will now have a description in its info if selected by a Mastermind.

• Robotics/Pulse Rifle Blast: This power can no longer be slotted with knockback enhancements as it doesn’t have a knockback component.

• Mastermind Soldier Medics now lose their Brawl attack when their Tier 1 upgrade is applied.  This makes them less likely to rush forward into combat.

• Mastermind Soldier Medics no longer throw their frag grenades. Instead, they are launched from their submachinegun.

• Mastermind Necromancy Liches Torrent power should now only do Knockdown, unless slotted with Knockback Enhancements or otherwise buffed.

Tasks

• The Find and Assist Barracuda mission in the Temple of Waters strike force will fail if you let Barracuda get defeated.

• Dr. Vimes will now appear in the “Kidnap Dr. Franklin Vimes” Mission.

• The contact Darrin Wade now sells enhancements

City of Heroes has expanded the suite of available purchasable services to include Character Respecs (short for Respecifications). Over the course of levelling up, there are many powers that a character can choose from. A Character Respec allows the character to re-select their powers from their chosen primary and secondary powers, along with any other pools of powers they have access to. To be clear, this optional purchasable Respec does not allow the primary or secondary powerset to be reselected; it functions like existing respecs currently available in game.

Optional Character Respecs are available via the in-game store, found at the character select screen, for the price of £ 5.99 / € 8.99.

There are already multiple in-game methods that players can obtain a Respec. Now, if the convenience of purchasing a Respec is desired, it is available. Having a purchasable option has been an often heard desire from the game’s customers.

Once a player purchases a Respec they must then visit a Respec Contact in-game to use it, in the same manner as the in-game obtainable respecs are done. The Respec Contacts include: Jack Wolf in Galaxy City and Arbiter Lupin in Nerva.

COMBINED

AI

• Entities which use the “Pet” AI should now cycle through their Ranged attacks, even while in Melee with a Target.

Badges

• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused a Supergroup’s progress towards earning SG badges to be lost.
• Corrected the badge descriptions of Task Force/Strike Force challenge badges that referred to stature level 1 as being 1-15 to be 1-14.
• Corrected stature level 8 and 9 badge descriptions from erroneously being level 40-44 to 40-45 and from 45-50 to 46-50.

Custom Weapons

• Rularuu Claws should be available to Female and Huge players who have unlocked them.
• Custom Roman axes granted by completing the Imperious Task Force should now be properly awarded.

Global Chat

• Players with Trial accounts will no longer be able to use Global chat channels.

Invention

• Corrected two recipes in the Trap of the Hunter set that stated they granted range or damage. This set grants neither.
• ToHit Buffs/DeBuff Common IOs should not state they buff or debuff Accuracy any longer, but should properly state that they buff or debuff the “To Hit” chance.

Powers

• Cone Attack Powers – Corrected an issue where Cone Attack powers would not hit moving targets.
• Animation time for Energy Punch, Stone Fist, Shadow Punch, and Charged Brawl changed from 1.0 second to 0.83 seconds. Activation time changed from 0.57 seconds to 0.83 seconds.
• Archery / Ranged Shot - Fixed some minor issues with Archery - Ranged Shot’s animation and graphical effects.
• Brawl - Animation time corrected. Old cast time was 0.67 seconds, and the new cast time is 0.83 seconds.
• Earth Control / Animate Stone - Replaced Animated Stone’s Stone Hammer Power with a version of Seismic Smash. He now understands how to cycle between powers more effectively.
• Energy Melee / Energy Transfer - Increased visual impact of Hit graphical effects.
• Accolade / Portable Workbench - The Portable Workbench should no longer be seen as a viable target for critter attacks.
• Flurry and Sands of Mu should now play the correct animation while Spines - Quills is active

Tasks

• The Lost and Found story arc will now correctly award salvage for players that are significantly higher levels than the mission levels.

User Commands

• “Synch” Command - Players can now use “/synch” in addition to “/sync” if they are experiencing any synchronization issues with the game servers.

User Interface

• Character Selection Screen - Corrected a bug where a Renamed character may disappear from the Character Selection screen until the player logs out and logs back in.
• Character Selection Screen – Corrected a bug where renaming a character moved the character to a different character slot location.

CITY of HEROES

Powers
Blasters

• Defiance - Corrected the Defiance Buff value granted by secondary power set powers. They should now be back to their previous values.
• Blaster / Energy Manipulation / Total Focus - Reduced Blaster Energy Manipulation Total Focus Disorient Magnitude from 4 to 3, to bring it in line with other versions of the power.

Badges

• Corrected text in the Firefighter badge.

CITY of VILLAINS

Powers
Masterminds

• Mastermind / Ninjas / Genin no longer have Archery attacks. “Snap Shot” and “Aimed Shot” have been replaced with “Shuriken” (a second Shuriken throw) and “Explosive Shuriken” attacks.
• Mastermind / Necromancy / Lich should remain at Range in combat more often now.

NCsoft Europe, The Sun and charity Draw the World Together combine to offer another uniquely crafted PC competition prize! The PC case features unique artwork from Neil Edwards, a regular Draw the World Together artist. Neil’s work is very popular when he attends shows with us, and this unique PC case is sure to be just as popular!

To enter, simply visit The Sun’s competition page and answer a simple question. Entries close on Monday 28th July, and are open to United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland residents over the age of 18.

The Games Convention in Leipzig will be a blast, no question about it. It will however also be stressful for all of us. There’s an abundance of things to organize as exhibitors and our sow, press and media people are likely to have walked many miles combined after each day – going from one game demo or conference to the other. And the customers, who keep the industry alive and kicking, have to queue up for often all too long to play or see their respective most anticipated games at the show.

We have a solution.

What better way is there to take a break from all this than all of us coming together on the Friday night and having a great party? That’s right – none. For this reason, we’re inviting the entire community, you guys, and your friends to our community party at the Nachtcafe, located in the heart of Leipzig’s inner city (Map). The party starts at 22:00 local time, so you should have enough time to get some dinner before joining us on the dance floor.

The best is yet to come, though. You won’t have to pay anything to get inside! Yeah, that’s right!

The party is for free for you and four of your friends, as long as one of you:

• prints out this flyer (b/w print out is fine) and shows it at the entrance.
• grabs one of the flyers on the showfloor (we will print them out and distribute them)
• wears an official T-Shirt from one of our games when you show up at the entrance.

Be a DJ

The music for the party will be selected by representatives from within our community – and it could be you. All you have to do is write an email to gc2008@ncsoft.com with the subject line ‘Party DJ’ together with a list of songs you would like to play and your real name as well as a chosen nickname. Each DJ will only get 20 minutes, so choose your songs carefully.

So if you already know that you can make it to our party (or you just made up your mind now) then let nothing stop you from applying now if you’d like to share your music with us.

Some things to remember:

• All music genres are allowed
• Mixing skills are not necessary
• Bring along your songs on one or more CD’s and/or vinyls.
• If possible include links to preview versions (no file attachments) of your songs in your email to save us time – we might not know all the songs.
• Don’t include more songs than you would play in 20 minutes.
• Closing date for applications: 31st of July 2008
• DJ’s will get announced the week afterwards
• If you are chosen as DJ come to the party early. You’ll find out your exact time slot there.

Be a singer

There’s a second room in the club which will be used to host our first ever NCsoft-Fansites Karaoke Battle. It’s not about winning, it’s about taking part and having fun, so join them and sing your favourite songs with them. The following fansites have already confirmed their participation:

• The Allfathers (Allvatar)
• Aion Gamona
• Aion-Daily
• Wartower
• Guild-Wars.info
• GW Tactics

Don’t miss it! We’ve been fighting for your right to party! Now come on!

There is a reason for the rejoicing in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. It is official - NCsoft has completely merged the two games into one game universe. All current subscribers who only had one of the games (City of Heroes or City of Villains) now have access to the features of both games. Additionally, all City of Heroes and City of Villains games for sale at retail or online will grant access to both games.

This is the final step needed in preparing the IP for future projects, to be announced later this year. Paragon City and the Rogue Isles have always been a part of the same game universe. When City of Villains launched in 2005 as a stand-alone game, it did not launch with an extra subscription fee, so there has always been this feeling that they are closely related. What’s different here is that NCsoft has taken down the barrier where players had to have a City of Villains serial code to make a villain, and vice versa. Now, it doesn’t matter if you bought Heroes or Villains, you can make characters from either faction and experience their unique game content. Additionally, Heroes now have access to base building, which was previously only available if you had purchased City of Villains.

“In setting the stage for our upcoming plans for the IP, we felt the time was right to truly consolidate the City of Heroes and City of Villains universe,” said Brian Clayton, General Manager and Executive Producer. “We have removed all restrictions that were created when City of Villains launched in order to make way for some really cool content and features we have in the pipeline. This is an evolution of the IP that lays the foundation for what’s to come.”

The most recent game update, Issue 12: Midnight Hour, launched in May and included a wealth of features, including a new Greek and Roman inspired zone, Villain Epic Archetypes, Powerset Proliferation, as well as more character slots so that players can try out the new character powers and Archetypes.

“We know that character variety is one of our greatest strengths and that’s why our players love to create new characters” said Matt Miller, Lead Designer. “Even former players who reactivate will be pleasantly surprised to see new open character slots waiting for them.”

Uniting the City of Heroes universe enables the development team to focus on other features slated to come in future installments. Improvements to Supergroup Bases and raids, an offline character reward system, and the previously revealed Mission Maker are just some of the systems that will see the benefits of a unified City of Heroes game. 

One of the many activities will be a costume competition (Sunday, 24.08, 12:00 MESZ). All you need to do is come dressed as a character from either Guild Wars, Aion Online, City of Heroes, Lineage 2, Tabula Rasa, or Dungeon Runners, then get up on the catwalk to strut your stuff!

However, this isn’t just for fun - the very best entrants will be inline to win some fantastic prizes, including some serious hardware like the Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Audio Card from gaming specialists Razer, and fantastic memorabilia courtesy of NCsoft. We also might have a special surprise in store, so make sure you come along!

One thing to keep in mind when designing your costume: Don’t bring any real weaponry, nor replicas made from steel – basically anything that can injure somebody! If you do you will not be allowed entry into the convention centre. LARP replicas are fine, however.

So, time to get out your sewing kit, pins and needles, and maybe even your welding torch, and get creative! We look forward to seeing your outfits!

Starting on July 18th and continuing through the weekend, both Villains and Heroes will receive twice the value for pursuing evil deeds or arresting criminals.

Rally together as super teams and discuss how you will be spending your Double XP Weekend in this forum topic.

COMBINED

AI

• Lady Jane should act more intelligently in combat situations now.
• 48 Month Veteran Reward pets should no longer charge into combat. Really.

Animation

• New animation for Super Strength – Punch while flying.

Powers

• Changes to root time for Energy Blast - Power Burst. This does not affect the activation time, it’s just something that was broken when 1st and 2nd tier blaster powers had their Activation times shortened.
• Dark Armor/Dark Embrace: Corrected the activation text to explain it also adds toxic resistance.
• Energy Melee / Energy Transfer – Activation time changed from 1.0 seconds to 2.67 seconds. New Animation and Graphical Effects also made.
• Total Focus: All player versions of Total Focus Disorient Magnitude reduced to 3.
• All versions of Martial Arts Eagles Claw chance to Disorient a target increased from 75% per attack to 100% per attack.
• All versions of Martial Arts Storm Kick now have a 5% greater chance to cause a Critical Hit in all cases.
• FX for Controller and Mastermind Glue Arrow should persist after the initial target’s demise now (the Defender version already had this property.)
• Dual Blades/Vengeful Strike: Synched this power’s floating numbers to better fit with when the character hits the target.

User Interface

• Buff Icon Bugs
  
  • Fixed Buff Icon display issue where Icons would disappear from Allies before the Buff Timer was over.
  • Fixed Buff Icon display issue when Buff Icons would disappear when a teammate (in the same non-instanced zone) logs out of the game.
  • Fixed Buff Icon display issue where team mates Zoning into a mission at different times caused Buffs Icons to disappear

Chat

• Fixed condition for chat ban that would cause players to be banned for excessively long times.
• Fixed coalition chat name display to display SG name and player name correctly.
• Fixed a condition where a player could receive messages from a globally ignored player.

Badges

• Defeating Romulus Nictus should correctly award the Roman badge
• Rularuu weapons now unlocked via Shadow Shard TF badges

Tailor / Custom Weapons

• The Rulaaru claws should now be unlockable
• Bowstring on Talsorian bow should now stay attached to the bow

CITY of HEROES

Powers

• Scrapper Martial Arts Dragons Tail: Damage and Endurance cost were slightly too low. These have been adjusted.
• Defender Vigilance will no longer increase the Defenders endurance costs when grouped with team mates with greater than normal Health values.
• Fixed an issue with Tanker Dark Melee and Dual Blades powersets which allowed “Chance to” enhancements affect areas of effect, rather than just the target of the attack.
• Dual Blades/Vengeful Strike: Added PvP Knockdown suppression to this power for both Scrappers and Tankers.

Tasks

• Safeguard Missions: Burning Daemon should now always spawn at the appropriate level for the mission he is in.
• Gordon Stacy now assigns the second mission in his story arc again.

CITY of VILLAINS

Powers

• Stalker/Electrical Melee/Thunder Strike: This power should now accept PBAoE damage sets.
• Brute/Dark Armor/Dark Regeneration: This power should now accept taunt enhancements and enhancement sets.
• Brute/Dark Melee/Touch of Fear: This power should now accept taunt enhancements and enhancement sets.
• Changed “%”to “percent” in the Stalker/Assassination inherent ability. Some players were experiencing some information to be displayed incorrectly because of the % sign.
• Energy Assault - PowerBurst now using Red FX
• Mercenaries/Serum: Fixed a typo in this power.
• Added Taunt Enhancement ability to Brute Dark Melee Touch of Fear and Dark Armor Dark Regeneration.
• Trick Arrow powers should no longer cause weapon redraw issues with Archery or Ninja Mastermind bow powers.
• Bane Spider Cone attacks did not have a max number of targets defined. This has been corrected.
• Shortened the time between the activation and effect for Crab Spider Training – Serum
• Widow Teamwork - Placate should no longer cause redraw with Widow claw powers.

Veteran Rewards

• Fixed typo in villain veteran granted title from “Vengful” to “Vengeful”

That’s right! We just added two brand new veteran badges to the Veteran Rewards system, for your own pleasure:

• 51 Months: Tried and True
• 54 Months: Allegiant

Check them out in detail on the Veteran Rewards page!

This summer NCsoft will be attending the Leipzig Games Convention, where players can meet the City of Heroes community team, win swag and go hands on with the hotly anticipated Aion: The Tower of Eternity. Yes, you read right… now read on to find out how.

Summer is upon us, and that can only mean one thing… the Games Convention, Europe’s biggest consumer videogames show, is almost here! Not only will this year’s show give you the chance to get together with your fellow players, you will also be able to take part in special community events, have the chance to plunder new game loot and, best of all, be among the first to play Aion: The Tower of Eternity!

The Games Convention, held in Leipzig, Germany, is open from 20-24 August, 2008. You can find the NCsoft booth in Hall 3, Booth B20, come and relax, meet the team and get your first taste of the stunning world of Atreia!

Select members of the European press will be given a private screening of Aion: The Tower of Eternity at NCsoft Europe HQ on 29-31 July, so be on the look out for the first sneak previews and in-depth features coming soon.

COMBINED

Powers

• Circle of Thorns Behemoth Invincibility toned down slightly. It now provides roughly 8% defense per target.
• Corrected animation time issues with Drain Psyche and Energy Absorption.
• Fixed a minor delay for the hit effects/damage on Martial Arts - Crippling Axe Kick
• Willpower / Rise to the Challenge will now root the player while activating. This was done to ensure it follows the same rules as other toggle powers.
• The animation used by Spine Burst and Thorn Burst will no longer prevent the next attack animation from playing.

User Commands

• Added /sync command which attempts to get the client and server back in sync when the client allows movement but it isn’t reflected on the server. (When out of sync, the player will be able to move around, but cannot see other players or NPCs, and other players cannot see them).

CITY of HEROES

Powers

Blasters

• Blasters / Defiance - Found a bug in the formula used for calculating Blaster Defiance buffs. The following powers have been altered as listed:
  
  • Fistful of Arrows (slightly weaker)
  • Rain of Arrows (slightly stronger)
  • Zapp (slightly stronger
  • Power Burst (stronger)
  • Bitter Freeze Ray (slightly stronger)
  • Shout (stronger)

CITY of VILLAINS

Powers

Corruptors

• Corruptor / Electric Blast / Voltaic Sentinel - Corruptor version of Voltaic Sentinel now benefits from Enhancements.

Dominators

• Dominator / Electric Assault / Thunder Strike: This power should no longer accept endurance modification sets.

Stalkers

• Fixed Stealth Suppression from Assassination Attacks

Tailor

• Weapon customization: Rularuu bow should now be obtainable by Villains

The Daily Mirror has announced a City of Heroes competition to celebrate the launch of Issue 12: Midnight Hour. One lucky entrant will win their very own uniquely-crafted PC featuring unique artwork hand-painted by Andrew Wildman, one of the artists from the charity Draw the World Together who regularly attends events with us! Four runners-up will receive a free copy of City of Heroes.

Entries close Wednesday, June 25th, so get yours in for the chance to win this one-of-a-kind hand-painted PC!

Combined

Powers

• Accolade / Portable Workbench accolade will no longer summon a Workbench in PVP areas.
• Dual Blades / One Thousand Cuts: Corrected this power’s cast time from being 2.43 seconds to 3.30 seconds.
• (Katana or Ninja Blade) / Sting of the Wasp animation once again returns to the two handed Katana Ready cycle after it completes
• Earth Control / Earthquake: Now accepts To Hit Debuff Enhancements and IO sets
• Some NPC weapons have been flipped back to their proper orientation
• Fixed transparency and colour for several powers icons
• Powers which accept Defense IO sets now accept “Defense Sets” rather than “defense”—text fix.

Animation

• Changed animations for Martial Arts attacks to help improve performance. New animation times are as follows:
  
  • Thunder Kick 0.83
  • Storm Kick 0.83
  • Cobra Strike 1.67
  • Crane Kick 1.67
  • Crippling Axe Kick 1.60
  • Dragons Tail 1.50
  • Eagles Claw 2.53

City Zones

• Cimerora: Fixed a hole near the Castellum bridge that allowed players to teleport under the world
• Cimerora: Fixed hole in Vespillo Pass that allowed players to teleport outside the map boundaries

Tailor (Character Creation / ICON / Facemaker)

• Change Shoulder category UI to reorder categories and clean up the list
• Change in Belt category UI to reorder categories and clean up the list

Invention

• Corrected short help text on Trap of the Hunter: Immobilize/Endurance Reduction IO enhancement. It no longer states it improves Damage.

User Interface

• Fixed the bug where tooltips displayed too small.
• Some pets summoned through control sets weren’t showing an icon in their buff tray, this has been corrected. All Tier 9 summoned pets should now have a buff icon.
• Fixed a display problem with the map compass in Cimerora.

Trial Accounts

• Trial Account restrictions implemented:
  
  • Trial Accounts cannot email other players
  • Trial Accounts may not level past 13
• Trial Accounts can only have 50k influence
• Trial Accounts can only speak in
  
  1. /local
  2. /help
  3. /team
• Trial Accounts cannot invite players to team
  
  1. Trial Accounts may join teams, but not invite other players
  2. Trial Accounts may not join SuperGroups.

CITY OF HEROES

Powers
Blaster

• Psionic Blast / Psionic Dart: This power will now have a unique icon, it should no longer be the same as Mental Blast
• Fire Manipulation / Burn: This power’s icon should now match the colour scheme of the other powers in the set.

Scrapper

• Fiery Aura / Consume: Power was incorrectly taking Knockback Sets instead of Endurance Modification sets. This has been corrected.
• Fiery Aura Consume now accepts Endurance Modification IO Sets, and no longer accepts Taunt Enhancements.
• Fiery Melee attacks no longer state they can accept Taunt IO sets.

Tanker

• Dark Armor / Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear no longer accept Taunt enhancements.
• Dark Melee attacks now accept Taunt Enhancements and Sets.

CITY of VILLAINS

Powers
Arachnos Widow

• Widow Training / Strike: Corrected Widow Strike power. It was separating damage into 2 packets, instead of a single packet of damage.

Brute

• Dark Melee powers, Shadow Punch, Shadow Maul, and Smite have had power icons corrected for Brutes and Stalkers.
• Electrical Melee / Chain Induction: Chain Induction jumping effect is now increased by enhancements and fury, and no longer jumps from confused NPCs to players. It also only strikes NPCs it has not previously jumped from. This affects Brute and Stalker versions of the power.

Dominator

• Dominator / Earth Control / Earthquake: Now accepts To Hit Debuff Enhancements and IO sets.

Mastermind

• Mastermind / Thugs / Call Thugs: This power was listing that it accepted knockback enhancements twice. This has been corrected.

Stalker

• Dark Melee powers, Shadow Punch, Shadow Maul, and Smite have had power icons corrected for Brutes and Stalkers.
• Dual Blades / Ablating Strike: Corrected an issue with Stalker Dual Blades Ablating Strike which was causing it to have critical effects against entities not targeted by the power.
• Electrical Melee attacks no longer accept Taunt Enhancements or IO Sets.
• Electrical Melee / Chain Induction: Chain Induction jumping effect is now increased by enhancements and fury, and no longer jumps from confused NPCs to players. It also only strikes NPCs it has not previously jumped from. This affects Brute and Stalker versions of the power.
• Updated the Stalker’s long help text on their Assassination inherent ability to reflect the recent changes to the Stalker archetype.
• Stalker Demoralize Effect no longer scales by level effects. The debuff and duration is fixed, regardless of the level of the target.

COMBINED

Animations

• Flight / Hover – Hover animations tweaked some more.

Badges

• Issue 12 Exploration badges should give XP.

Inventions

• Trap of the Hunter Acc/Recharge: Corrected the short help for this enhancement to read Acc/Rech and not Acc/Dmg.
• Corrected short help in Defense and To-Hit Debuff invention origin sets.  They should now list that they enhance To-Hit Debuffs and Defense Debuffs instead of To-Hit Buffs and Defense Buffs.

Powers

• Accolade / Portable Workbench accolade will once again summon a Workbench in non-PVP areas.

Tasks

• Fixed improper start location in the Midnighter’s Club mission map as accessed by the Darrin Wade story arc.

Trial Accounts

• Added a message specific to trial accounts explaining why they can’t send emails.

CITY of HEROES

Animation

• Kheldian Dwarves and other critters that share the beast skeleton should play their “Taunt” animation again.

Badges

• Issue 12 Hero Exploration badges now have the correct art.

Powers

Scrappers

• Scrappers / Fire Melee / Cremate now accepts Damage IO sets, instead of Melee AoE IO Sets.
• Scrappers / Katana - Modified Katana cast times to match new animation times. Most powers are now faster activating.

Peacebringers

• Peacebringer / Combat Flight - Combat Flight now has the correct fly speed modifier of 1 (instead of the 4 it was given during the -Fly protection tests.)

Tasks

• Tech. Naylor’s souvenir clues should unlock Rularuu Weapons for the appropriate powersets.

CITY of VILLAINS

Stalker Update

• Further tweaks to the class based on data mining and player feedback (and some bug fixes):
  
  • Stalker Demoralize Effect duration reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Stalker Demoralize Effect To Hit debuff reduced from 22.5% to 7.5%, but is no longer resistible.
  • Stalker Demoralize Effect Terrorize chance reduced from 30% to 25% per target.
  • Stalker Energy Melee Energy Transfer Self Damage increased from scale 2.5 to scale 3.00. This is due to Stalkers improved Hit Points and damage capability.
  • Sting of the Wasp and Crippling Axe Kick for stalkers will now properly have a chance to crit while not in a Hide state, instead of having a chance to double crit from a Hide state.
  • Vengeful Slice for Stalkers now correctly does Knockdown once again.

Powers

Arachnos Soldier

• Arachnos Soldier / Bane Spider - Fixed Bane spider characters getting an invisible default mace when using a powers respec.
• Arachnos Soldier / Crab Spider / Longfang - Corrected help text on Crab Spider Longfang.

Arachnos Widow

• Arachnos Widow / Teamwork / Indomitable Will - Indomitable Will for Widows will no longer gain increased damage resistance when the Widows damage is buffed.
• Arachnos Widow / Widow Training / Follow Up – “Follow Up” now has a unique animation not shared by “Strike”
• Arachnos Widow / Widow Training / Follow Up - Matched cast time to new Follow Up animation.

Masterminds

• Masterminds / Thugs / Call Thugs / Empty Clips: Adjusted this power’s range down to match its radius (it was firing before enemies were within the cone of effect). Also decreased this power’s damage.
• Masterminds / Thugs / Call Thugs: Corrected typo in the summoned entity’s description.

Stalkers

• Electric Armor / Static Shield: This power’s icon should no longer disappear after a minute of activity.

Tasks

• Alan Desslock now gives a better explanation why you cannot get his final mission from him.

User Interface

• Shortened display name of Arachnos Soldiers and Widows in target window

COMBINED

Maps

• Imperious Task Force:  Fixed several holes on the Vespillo Pass map (the 3rd map in the TF)

NPC Enemies

• The formula used by Lieutenants to calculate hit points (hp) was incorrect. This resulted in Lieutenants below level 15 having more hit points than intended, and those above level 15 having fewer than intended. At level 1, a Lieutenant had 22 hp greater than they should, and at level 54, they had 55 hp less than they should. The formula has been corrected and they now have the correct hp throughout their level ranges.

Powers

Attack Powers:

• Assault Rifle/M30 Grenade: This power should now be able to be slotted for both knockback enhancements and sets. This affects all versions of this power.
• Battle Axe / Gash: Since this power currently uses Beheader’s old animation to smooth out its overall attack chain, its power name has been changed to Beheader to better suit its animation.
• Battle Axe / Beheader: Since this power currently uses Gash’s old animation to smooth out its overall attack chain, its power name has been changed to Gash to better suit its animation.
• Fire Sword: The animation for this power was changed. Its cast time was reduced from 1.67 to 1.33 seconds. This affects the power for all versions of Fiery Melee and Fire Manipulation.
• Hurl Boulder: The animation for this power was changed. Its cast time was reduced from 3.83 to 2.5 seconds. This affects the versions of this power in Stone Mastery (Epic) and Stone Melee.
• Ice Sword: The animation for this power was changed. Its cast time was reduced from 1.67 to 1.33 seconds. This affects the versions of this power in Ice Melee, Ice Manipulation and Icy Assault.
• Stone Melee/Heavy Mallet: Increased activation time to 1.63. This was done to allow the animation to return the player into the neutral position before activating another power
• Stone Melee/Stone Mallet: Increased activation time to 1.61. This was done to allow the animation to return the player into the neutral position before activating another power.
• Super Strength / Hurl: The animation for this power was changed. Its cast time was reduced from 3.83 to 2.5 seconds. This affects both the Brute and Tanker versions of this power.
• Further AI improvements for Seeker Drones and the Gun Drone power.
• Damage from Psychic Blast / Mental Blast should be delayed to sync with projectile now.

Power Pool Powers:

• Flight / Hover – Hovering Forward now has a new animation
• Flight / Hover - Hover is now resistant to -Fly effects.
• Medicine - Minor animation changes for Medicine - Aid Other, Aid Self, and Stimulant
• Medicine - Revive animation and FX should now play properly.

Status Effect / Buffs / Debuff Powers:

• Mind Control/Confuse: Added PvP Confusion suppression to this power.
• Mind Control/Mass Confusion: Added PvP Confusion suppression to this power.
• Plant Control/Seeds of Confusion: Added PvP Confusion suppression to this power.
• Storm Summoning / O2 Boost: The duration of the perception bonus portion of O2 Boost now matches the duration of the other buffs associated with the power.

Rewards

• Vanguard Merits now will display ‘Merit Awarded!’ instead of ‘Salvage Found!’ when they are awarded to a player.

Tasks

• Taskforce challenge ‘debuff players’ was only being applied to the team leader.  This has been fixed.

User Interface

• Replaced character slot store icon

CITY of HEROES

Powers

Blaster

Blaster / Psychic Blast / Will Domination: Changed the long help text to match the short help text for this power. The long help for Will Domination now accurately states this power deals Moderate damage.
• Blaster / Mental Manipulation / World of Confusion: Blaster World of Confusion endurance cost was 50 % of the correct value. This has been corrected.
• Blaster / Electric Blast / Charged Bolts: The blaster version of this power should no longer list that it takes endurance modification enhancements twice.

Controller

• Controller / Illusion Control / Deceive: Added PvP Confusion suppression to this power.

Defender

• Defender / Psychic Blast / Will Domination: Changed the long help text to match the short help text for this power. The long help for Will Domination now accurately states this power deals Moderate damage.
• Defender / Psychic Blast / Mental Blast: Damage is now delayed for projectile hit

Kheldian Epic Archetypes

• Peacebringer / Combat Flight, Peacebringer / Bright Nova, and Warshade / Dark Nova are now resistant to -Fly effects.

Peacebringer

• Peacebringer / Luminous Blast / Photon Seekers: Increased Radius on Peacebringer Photon Seekers’ explosion from 7’ to 10’, but reduced their damage slightly from Damage Scale 2 to 1.64.
• Peacebringer / Combat Flight now gives AoE defense equal to its existing Melee and Ranged Defense values.

CITY of VILLAINS

Stalker Update

• Increased Stalker Melee damage multiplier from 0.9 base to 1.0 base.
• Increased Stalker Hit Points multiplier from 0.95 to 1.125
• All Stalker melee attacks now have a chance to critical while not hidden. This chance is equal to 10% plus 3% per additional team member within 30’ of the stalker at the time of the attack. This only applies to PVE targets. Stalkers old chance to critical Held or Slept targets now only applies to PVP targets.
  
  • The Critical portion of Energy Transfer operates exactly as if you were criticalling from Hide—it eliminates the Self Damage, rather than increasing damage to the target.
• Using an Assassination attack and missing will no longer suppress Hide (though lesser stealth and invisibility powers will still suppress) if the attack misses. If the attack hits, Hide suppresses normally.
• Hide Suppression for Stalkers reduced from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Assassination attacks now cause a demoralizing effect on PVE targets that survive the attack. Demoralized targets To Hit value is reduced, and the target may be frozen in terror.

Powers

Villain Epic Archetypes:

• Arachnos Soldiers and Widows will now properly be able to enhance Patron Power Pool powers.

Arachnos Soldier

• Arachnos Soldier / Crab Spider / Omega Maneuver: Mobs defeated by Omega Maneuver explosion should now grant rewards to the player.

Arachnos Widow

• Arachnos Widow / Fortunata Teamwork / Aura of Confusion: Added PvP Confusion suppression to this power.
• Arachnos Widow / Fortunata Teamwork / Confuse: Added PvP Confusion suppression to this power.
• Arachnos Widow / Fortunata Training / Total Domination: This power’s victim hit message was reporting {PowerName} instead of the power’s name, this has been corrected.
• Arachnos Widow / Fortunata Training / Subdue: This power now has the proper purple ring visual effect to indicate the target has been immobilized; these were not present for NPC targets.
• Arachnos Widow / Fortunata Training / Dominate: This power’s victim hit message was reporting {PowerName} instead of the power’s name, this has been corrected.
• Arachnos Widow / Widow Training: All attacks from Widow Training had their toxic damage enhanceable. This has been fixed.
• Arachnos Widow / Widow Training / Strike: Corrected animation for Widow Training – Strike.  Strike now uses intended ‘gutpunch’ animation.
• Arachnos Widow / Widow Training / Poison Dart: Long help read “Poison Dart does light moderate damage to your foe, then poisons them. The poison does toxic damage over time and reduces their regeneration rate. Damage: Moderate Recharge: Fast”. Changed to: “Poison Dart does moderate damage to your foe, then poisons them. The poison does toxic damage over time and reduces their regeneration rate. Damage: Moderate Recharge: Fast”
• Arachnos Widow / Widow Training: Animation/Activation time changes for some Arachnos Widow Claw attacks.
  
  • Swipe - 0.83 seconds
  • Strike - 1.17 seconds
  • Slash - 1.33 seconds

Brutes

• Super Reflexes / Evasion: Corrected the Brute version of this power to cost the correct amount of endurance. It previously was costing far too little endurance.

Corruptor

• The Corruptor version of Voltaic Sentinel now has Scourge effects.
• Traps and Storm Summoning for Corruptors were using the wrong value in the endurance cost calculations. This has been corrected and should see a decrease in endurance costs for most powers from these sets.

Dominators

• Dominators / Icy Assault / Greater Ice Sword: This power has been renamed ‘Ice Slash’. This is to differentiate it from powers with the same name, but differing animations.

Masterminds

• Masterminds / Necromancy / Grave Night: The henchman The “Grave Knight” will now use his Necromancy Sword for all of his attacks. This should also help him cycle through all of his sword attack powers.

Stalkers

• Stalkers / Ninja Blade / Placate should no longer cause redraw with other Ninja Blade powers.
• Stalkers / Dual Blades / Assassin’s Blades – Fixed Animation

Temporary Powers

• Coral Club: This power had its activation time increased to 1.6 seconds. This was done to allow the animation to return the player into the neutral position before activating another power.

Tailor

• Crab Spider backpacks are now only available to Soldiers Of Arachnos who have specialized in the Crab Spider path. They are customizable now at the Facemaker and will be removed if you respec out of the Crab Spider path.

Issue 12: Midnight Hour has arrived on the live servers and is now open! Immerse yourself in the new Midnight Squad storyline with a host of new missions, and experience Roman-style zone environments unlike anything you’ve seen in Paragon City™ or the Rogue Isles™.

For Villains, we introduce the all-new Villain Epic Archetypes: the Soldiers of Arachnos. Powerset Proliferation brings new powerset choices for all archetypes, and the list of overall gameplay and Quality of Life improvements is, well, lengthy! To see the full list of new features, updates and other changes in Issue 12: Midnight Hour, make sure to check out the patch notes.

As the Senior Art Lead, it’s my job to figure out how to turn Positron and the rest of the team’s ideas into visual realities.  Coming from both a film and environment art background, I am always excited when the opportunity to create new settings for the game presents itself.  A Task Force inspired by ancient Greece and Rome, however, was genre-stretching territory we’d never ventured into before, and presented some serious challenges.

Could Heroes and Villains of every imaginable variety fit into an ancient, fantastic setting?  Would Cimerora feel as connected to the Hero and Villain experience as Atlas Park or Mercy Island? Would it be exciting to see super powered battles between leather and bronze clad warriors in sandals versus Heroes and Villains in tights?  I’d like to give you a glimpse into the process that took Cimerora from concept to completion! 

Creating Cimerora: The Process

1 – Genesis of the Idea
Creating Greek and Roman inspired mission content was something that we wanted to do with Issue 11: A Stitch in Time. It was always a goal of ours for that Issue to really make you feel like a time traveler by going back to ancient times and interacting with the locals there. Unfortunately, when all the art tasks for Issue 11 were estimated, it became apparent that we would not be able to complete it for that Issue. We did, however, start work on several assets that we knew we would need once we got the content underway.

2 – Mission/Zone Concept
For Issue 12, Positron (Matt Miller) and Hero 1 (Joe Morrissey) had a time traveling Task Force in mind with several fairly epic missions.  It quickly became clear that in order to truly support the Task Force content, Cimerora would need to become a place of its own. 

Taking Heroes and Villains to ancient times was a huge challenge conceptually and visually, and we felt that providing a persistent area for players to explore, team up in, and even resurrect if needed, would help make the experience feel more natural. 

Another key conceptual goal for Cimerora was to make it feel like a real place, rather than just a play space.  To make this a reality, we decided that all mission and zone content should be interconnected, forming a more continuous geographical area for players to explore.

3 – Asset Concept and Creation
While Hero 1 retreated to his cave to design the mission and story content of the zone, I drew up a rough map of the spaces we’d need and the environment artists began gathering reference and prototyping assets for the zone. 

For signature architecture and locations we turned to our fantastic concept artist, Carolina Tello Alvarado, who illustrated all of the key architecture and iconography for Castellum Quarter and the Oracle’s Island .  These illustrations, along with the advance work we did during Issue 11, helped the environment team work quickly and effectively to create and refine literally thousands of new visual assets encompassing everything from cliffs and terrain to buildings and fortresses.

4 – Environment Layout and Prototyping
Once the library of Cimeroran assets had begun to take shape, Don Pham and Ryan Roth of our environment team worked closely with Hero 1 and War Witch (Melissa Bianco) to create the map layouts you’ll find in Cimerora. Reveals and vistas were carefully planned and “white boxed” in order to ensure that the story was revealed visually as intended. “White boxing” is the process of using an easily changeable, temporary layout to make sure game play, “pathing” and overall flow is working properly. 

5 – Revision
White boxed zones often change daily based on play testing, story modifications; or simply because some ideas sound great on paper, but don’t work so well in game.  This was the case with the Castellum Quarter mission map for the Time’s Arrow Task Force. The original design of Castellum Quarter called for a high class temple district with beautiful gardens, but when the environments were created in the editor, it became apparent that the mood just wasn’t sinister and epic enough to sell the story content. The white boxed level was torn down, and a new Castellum Quarter was born as a huge fortress atop craggy cliffs , connected by soaring bridges.

6 - Population, Revision and More Revision
As the Art and Design teams reached consensus on the layouts for Cimerora and its associated missions, War Witch began drawing on the fantastic Greek and Roman inspired characters and costumes Jay Doherty created as well as the spectacular new animations and FX that Back Alley Brawler (Chris Bruce) and the animation team supplied to populate each map with dynamic spawns and NPCs.

Shortly after the maps were populated and missions were hooked up, it was time for play testing, and inevitably, more revisions! 

7- Polish and Release
During the final days before release, feedback from internal play tests as well as from closed and open beta testing is examined. Game play is tweaked, geometry holes are plugged, and textures, scene settings, music and audio are all finalized for release.  By the time you set foot in Cimerora, its final content will have been contributed to by almost every member of the Art and Design teams.

Final Words
Cimerora is one of my favorite places in the CoH/CoV universe, and is a truly unique zone that has allowed us to push the game’s visuals and level design in new, more focused and immersive directions.  I hope Heroes and Villains alike find their travels in Cimerora to be as exciting and memorable as it has been for the team to create this new zone! 

In this in depth look at the creation of the new zone Cimerora, Ken Morse takes us behind the scenes and through the seven steps that brought Cimerora from concept to completion.

Issue 12: Midnight Hour

“Now in the world’s hour of need, the clock strikes midnight. It’s the Midnight Hour.”

The Midnight Squad story arcs (Hero and Villain)

For generations, the Midnight Squad has dedicated their lives to protect the world from worldly and dimensional threats.  Now, they need the help of the Heroes of Paragon City and the Villains of the Rogue Isles to finally rid the world of Rikti.  Heroes and Villains must cross through time and journey to an ancient land to find knowledge long forgotten and battle ancient foes.

New Zone : Cimerora

Cimerora is a hub zone (like Ouroboros) with features such as:

• Task Force Contact: Imperious - who gives out the “Time’s Arrow” Task Force
• Atmosphere spawns around the perimeter and out-of-the-way areas so that players are not attacked while interacting with contacts
• Functional Contacts:  store, trainer, notoriety contacts for Villains and Heroes
• Senator Aquila provides a simple introduction story arc and Marcus Valerius gives out repeatable missions

New Task Force : “Time’s Arrow”

• Co-Op Task Force (35-50)

Character Origin Missions (Hero and Villain)

Where did Origins come from? How are they connected? How long have they existed? 

Villain Epic Archetypes:

• Arachnos Soldier
• Arachnos Widow

Hollows Revamp

The Hollows has received a game-play upgrade including:

• Completely redesigned spawn encounters (ranging from city-sized spawns to hazard-sized spawns)
• Added Meg Mason, a new contact who gives out repeatable missions
• Added stores (one at either entrance) and a trainer (Foreshadow)
• Added a mobile hospital
• Did a complete mission-door revamp so most missions should have the neighbourhood-appropriate doors to match
• Added some new Villain groups for variety and flavour

Loading Screen Tips

• Loading screen tips will now appear on the loading screens for mission maps.
• There is an option to disable loading tips in the options window.

Powerset Proliferation

While researching the energy strands that all super powered beings tap into, Dr. Brainstorm caused a massive release of energy that imbalanced the energy grid surrounding the powers nexus.

As a result, it appears that heroes and villains now have access to powers that previously were unavailable to them.

Blaster

• New Primary - Psychic Blast
• New Secondary - Mental Manipulation

Brute

• New Primary - Battle Axe
• New Primary - War Mace
• New Secondary - Super Reflexes

Controller

• New Primary - Plant Control
• New Secondary - Thermal Radiation

Corruptor

• New Primary - Electrical Blast
• New Secondary - Storm Summoning

Defender

• New Primary - Cold Domination
• New Secondary - Ice Blast

Dominator

• New Primary - Earth Control
• New Secondary - Electricity Assault

Mastermind

• New Secondary - Storm Summoning

Scrapper

• New Primary - Fiery Melee
• New Secondary - Fiery Aura

Stalker

• New Primary - Electric Melee
• New Secondary - Electric Armor

Tanker

• New Primary - Dark Armor
• New Secondary - Dark Melee

Optional Character Slots Purchases

• Players can now purchase optional character slots on each server with a one-time fee, and not an addition to your monthly subscription fee.
• Players can have up to 36 slots per server.
• Purchases of a single character slot may be allocated to any single server of your choice, subject to the maximum server limit. 
• Purchases of multiple slots may be allocated to any single server or split between multiple servers of your choice, subject to the maximum server limit. 
• For a limited time, all accounts that log into the Live Servers will receive 2 free Character Slots.  This is for a *Limited* time only.
• For every 12 month cumulative period that an account has been subscribed, players will receive 1 free slot.

User Interface:

• Character slots in the character selection screen can now be reorganized by dragging and dropping. The sort order is stored in a file on the client, but only if “Remember Account Name” is checked on the Log-in Screen.
• Added Hide Delete Recipe prompt option to Options window.
• Added option to display a rating from a Player Note above the players head in the options window.
• Added option to disable loading tips in the options window.
• The mouse scroll wheel will now affect scrollbars when the mouse is over a scrollable area. This can be disabled in the options window.
• Missions’ headers now show the level of the mission.
• Auction house inventory now shows count of slots used/slots total.
• Kicking a member from supergroup or removing a global friend via button-click will present a confirmation dialog.
• Disable Camera Shake Option Added (found in options window)
• Contact List Improvements
  
  • Contacts can now be sorted by the contact’s name, name of the zone, and contact relationship.  All contacts that are active will appear in the “active” tab.
  • Added Broker Tab for Villains and a Detective Tab for Heroes to Contact User Interface.
  • When sorting Contacts by Zone, contacts in the current zone will always appear at the top.
  • In all sorts, Contacts with missions you are currently on will always appear at the top.
• Fixed a rare bug that could cause the main “health bar” window to vanish.
• A couple small additions to help improve performance for dial-up users:
  
  • Added Option to disable combat numbers on power buff icons
  • Added Option to disable sending buff information altogether

Email

• Added “Spam” Button to email window. It will ignore the sender as a spammer and delete the email.

Power Trays

• Eight additional power trays added which can be accessed by clicking the “+” sign on the upper-right of the Power Tray Interface or via commands (/show tray1, /show tray2, show tray3, etc).
• These trays have no jelly to click on, but can be dragged about by clicking on non-occupied slots or dead space.
• These trays are deformable.
• Added command /clear_tray which will remove all non-macros from all power trays.

Player Notes:

• You may now rate players and write notes about them.
  
  • The notes are stored by global name.
  • The note list is stored locally on your computer and will bring up the same notes for any character you play with.
  • It can be invoked by typing /playernote or by clicking “Add Note” on context menus.
  • There is a new option to display the rating you’ve given a player above their name.
  • Additionally, you can enable private message logging to store private message logs on a per global name basis.
  • Only you will see the Player Notes that you write and ratings you give.  Since these notes are stored locally on your computer, other players cannot see your notes and ratings. 
  • Conversely, you will not be able to see any Player Notes or ratings that other players may have written about you.

In-Depth Power Information

Detailed Power Information is now available at Power Selection, Level up, Respec, and Enhancement placing screen as well as a new tab in the info window. This information shows the powers basic data along with every effect the power has.

• There is a slider to see the effect of the power across all levels.
• There is a class selector to see how the power would perform for each class.
• There is a PvP toggle to see how powers will change in PvP.
• Powers that spawn pets will show all powers the pets use and their effects.

Improved Character Creator

Players may now select a costume set theme from the new “Costume Sets” drop down menu in the Character creation process, the Tailor (for Heroes) or Facemaker (for Villains). 

The Costume Sets revolve around existing and new Costume sets.  Some Costume Sets are unlocked through gameplay achievements, Veteran Rewards (i.e. the Boxer set) or by Costume Pack purchase (i.e. the “Good Versus Evil” Justice and Sinister costumes or the Wedding Pack).

Local Settings

Most user options can now be saved to file and loaded from file. If a default setting file is saved, all newly created characters will use the default file to set initial options. The options window has buttons added to save and load default files. Non-default files can be saved and loaded via slash commands.

General Options

• /option_save, /options_save_file
• /option_load, /option_load_file
• /option_set
• /option_toggle
• /option_list - Lists names allowed for /option_set and /option_toggle
• /bindload, /bindloadfile /bindsave /bindsavefile display confirmation messages
• /bindloadfilesilent and /bindsavefilesilent do not display confirmation messages

Window Configuration

• Window names are now all exposed, and you can now see a list of valid names with the /window_names command
• Added commands /wdw_save and /wdw_save_file to save your current window configuration.
• Added commands /wdw_load and /wdw_load_file to load your window save file.

Chat Tab Configuration

• /chat_save and /chat_save_file save chat settings locally
• /chat_load and /chat_load_file load chat settings on current character

Chat System Revamp

Player Names are now clickable in the chat window, which brings up a menu you can use to:

• Chat
• Invite to Team
• Add Friend
• Get Global or Local name
• Ignore
• Ignore Spammer

Clicking the channel name of a global chat channel will give these options:

• Send Message
• List Members
• Set MotD (Message of the Day)
• Set Description
• Leave Channel
• Set Color - allows you to set your global channel display colours.

Right-Clicking a players name in a global chat channel that you are a moderator of will give additional options:

• Silence/Unsilence
• Kick

Powers, Enhancements, Recipes, Inspirations, and Salvage are now linkable in chat:

• You can drag/drop those items on to the chat window to create link
• You can type the name (if you know it) of an item inside a pair of square brackets, for example: [Luck]
• Clicking the link will bring up the info window for that item
• Many powers/items in the game have the same name, in those cases additional information is added to the link

Under the chat options section, there is new item “Individual Name Colors” which will display each name in the chat window its own colour.

Pet combat messages are now sent to the pet owner. Added channels Pet Damage Inflicted, Pet Combat, Pet Damage Received, Pet Healing Received, Pet Healing Delivered, and Pet Hit Rolls. Newly created Masterminds will have a “Pet Combat” tab added.

Global Chat Changes

Global Names and Local Server names are now transparent.  The invisible wall between global and local identities has been removed, so that if you know another player’s Local Server Name, then you will be able to find out their Global name by using the following commands:

• /get_local_name
• /get_global_name

/hide and /ghide will now bring up an option dialog where you can separately choose to hide from Global Chat Channels, Global Friends, Server Friends, Supergroup, and Searches.

In addition there are commands to individually set each of these options:

• /hide_sg, /unhide_sg - Makes you appear offline in supergroup window
• /hide_search, /unhide_search - Prevents you from appearing in the looking for group window
• /hide_friends, /unhide_friends - Makes you appear offline to server friends
• /hide_gfriends, /unhide_gfriends - Makes you appear offline to global friends
• /hide_gchannels, /unhide_gchannels - Prevents you from appearing in global channel lists
• /hide_tell, /unhide_tell - You will still receive tells, but the sender will get error message as if you were offline
• /hide_invite, /unhide_invite - All invites will be blocked as if you were offline
• /hide_all, /unhide_all - Sets all hide options on or off

Changed /ignore and /gignore functionality. Using either command will ignore that user on all global channels as well as all local characters and any new characters they create.

Increased Max Friends to 200

Ignore list size had been increased to 200.

Players are now allowed to have 10 Global channels.

Zone Event System Message Channels

• There are two separate Zone Event System channels, the Hero Zone Event Message and Villain Zone Event Message channel.
  
  • Warnings will appear in the appropriate event channels for the Clockwork Paladin, Giant Octopus, Ghost Ship, Croatoa Battle, Troll Rave, Hellion Fire, Miner’s Strike, Arachnos Flier, Caleb and Deathsurge zone events.

Inspiration Improvements

You can now combine 3 inspirations of the same type and strength into a different inspiration of the same strength, this is accessible via the context menu for qualified inspirations.
Also added slash commands for inspirations:

• /insp_delete
• /insp_combine

Leveling Up Bonus

Levelling up will refill health and endurance!

In addition to restoring the player to full health and endurance, levelling up will now greatly inspire the player.

Combat Attribute Window Improvements

Added commands to add or remove attributes form the Attribute Monitor:

• /monitor_attribute
• /stop_monitor_attribute

Per player request, added new fields to the Combat Attribute Window.

• Experience to Next Level
• Current Experience Debt
• Last Hit Chance (from a click power)
• Endurance Consumption (total from active toggle powers)
• Influence
• Healing Bonus

Power Trays

• Added command /clear_tray which will remove all non-macros from all power trays.

Trial Account Limitations

Trial Accounts now have the following restrictions.  Characters on Trial Accounts may not:

• Hold more than 50,000 Influence/Infamy
• Join a Supergroup
• Use any chat other than /local, /team, or /friend.
• Invite characters into a Team (although Trial Account characters can join a team)
• Use In-Game Mail
• Level up past level 14
• Enter any PVP Zone

Combined Notes

User Interface
Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented selecting a shared mission

Fixed a rare bug where the camera would always switch to first person mode when the player’s character entered a zone.

Powers

Accolades

• Accolades - Reduced the To Hit bonus provided by the “Geas of the Kind Ones” and “Force of Nature” accolades from +200 to +25.
• Accolades \ Force of Nature – should now work when exemplared, like other accolade powers.

Attack Powers

• Corrected Activation time for Whirling Hands and Spin. These times did not accurately reflect the duration of the rooted portion of the animation.
• Normalized attack times for PBAOE powers that share the twirl animation, such as Fire Sword Circle, Whirling Sword, and Whirling Axe.
• Fiery Melee / Scorch: This power now uses a shorter casting time to go along with its new shorter animation.
• Near ground attacks (like fossilize) will no longer be foiled by continuous jumping
• All versions of Lift, Propel, Levitate, Repulsion Bomb and Force Bolt now suppress properly versus players.

Defence Powers

• Dark Armor/Death Shroud: Increased this power’s activation time from 1.17 seconds to 3.47 seconds. This was changed so that the power’s activation time matched its rooted time.

Buff / Debuff / Status Effect Powers

• Boost Range - Removed stacking from all versions of Boost Range.
• Dark Armor / Soul Transfer, Set untouchable timer to 15 seconds. Removed a small delay before the untouchable portion of power activates, and added an “Untouchable” float text.
• Dark Melee / Soul Drain: The Tanker and Brute version of this power stated that it could be slotted with to-hit debuff enhancements. It has no to-hit debuff component. This has been corrected.
• Dark Miasma / Black Hole - should now see “Black Hole” Float text when target is made intangible.
• Fiery Aura / Rise of the Phoenix - Removed a small delay before the untouchable portion of power activates, and added an “Untouchable” float text.
• Force Field / Detention Field - Should now see “Detention Field” Float text when target is made untouchable.
• Gravity Control / Dimension Shift - should now see “Dimension Shift” Float text when a target is made intangible.
• Power Boost - Reduced strength of all versions of Power Boost by 33%, removed Knockback boost and removed stacking from the power.
• Radiation Emission / Choking Cloud: Increased this power’s activation time from 2.03 seconds to 3.47 seconds. This was changed so that the power’s activation time match its rooted time
• Radiation Emission / Fallout now targets only dead Teammates.
• Sonic Buff / Sonic Cage - Should now see “Sonic Cage” Float text when a target is made untouchable.
• Storm Summoning / O2 Boost - All versions of O2 Boost now grant a Perception bonus to the target.
• Thermal Radiation / Power of the Phoenix - Should now see an “Untouchable” float text when target is made untouchable.
• Normalized Debt protection in all rezzing powers in powersets to 90 seconds. Sets affected: Tanker and Scrapper Fire Aura, Willpower, Dark Armor, and Regen. Controller and Defender buff sets Empathy, Radiation, Dark and Thermal.
• Powers that do not cause aggro will no longer suppress stealth.
• Powers that could only affect players on the ground will now affect all players above them as well as standing on them. This is to fix a PVP exploit making ground based powers ineffective. Powers fixed: Tar Patch, Bonfire, Ice Patch, Ice slick, Quicksand, Caltrops, and Volcanic Gasses.
• Added an enforced 60 second period in which Phase Shift powers cannot be reactivated after a previous activation of the power.
• “Caging” powers (Sonic Cage, Black Hole, etc) now follow standard suppression rules in PVP.
• Added Phase suppression to the Phase Flight temporary power
• Knockback is now affected by suppression in PvP, in the same way as Hold, Sleep and Disorient.  This change has been applied to many powers that can cause knockback.  Any player affected by a knockback will become immune to further knockback attempts for 10 seconds.  The affected powers have been noted in the appropriate detailed Archetype powers sections below.

Travel Powers

• Leaping / Acrobatics - Reduced Knockback Protection of Acrobatics from 100 points to 9 points. Note that this means there are certain critters who will occasionally overcome the protection provided.
• Leaping / Acrobatics - Now accepts Knockback enhancements. These will increase the protection to knockback attacks, however only 2/9ths of the protection is enhanceable.
• Teleport / Teleport Self - Adjusted the target location code for Teleport Self to reduce the likelihood of getting a red failure reticule.

Veteran Reward Powers

• Decreased knockback on Prestige Nemesis Staff (from 9 to 4)

Values Changes

• ToHit was not actually being clamped to max class value and now is.

Status Effect Changes

• Confused players will only be able to harm teammates.
• Repel resist in Break Free and Emerge inspirations improved
• Increased Disorient Magnitude on Awaken and Bounce Back inspirations to 5, in order to prevent it from causing Rest to fail in conjunction with villain epic archetypes’ status protection.

AI

• Pets should no longer become terrified and run in terror when their owner’s Oil Slick power fades.

Arena

• Changed timing between scheduled arena match rounds from 10 seconds to 120 seconds (where it was supposed to be).

Bases

• Robo-Surgery will now attach to Base Reclaimator

Emotes

• Added /emote ReadBook
• Fixed the Boombox emote animation for ‘Beat’ so that it loops properly.

Game

• Fixed a crash where pressing the Left/Right keyboard arrows or numeric keypad 4 and 6, while viewing the auction window, would cause the client to crash.

Graphical Effects and Animations

• Fiery Aura / Blazing Aura - Activating Blazing Aura while moving will now transition properly into moving animations once the rooting period is complete.
• Fiery Melee / Scorch now has a different, slightly faster animation than Incinerate.
• Fiery Melee / Scorch: This power now uses a shorter casting time to go along with its new shorter animation.
• Fixed the rooting problem where certain buff toggles were activated before they were ready.
• Knockback animation should now play correctly on non-flying targets that use the male, female, or huge models.
• All of the projectiles in the Flares power Graphical Effects should be killed off at the proper time now.
• Knockback / Knockup animations will no longer play faster or slower based on the scale of the character.
• Knockback / Knockup animations for flight mode have been flagged similarly to non-flying versions
• Corrected error for all powers using the ‘ground summon’ animation. The duration of the portion of the animation flagged as ‘can’t move’ was significantly longer than the reported Activation Time.
• Modified Mitochondria visibility/targetability.  Mitochondria should now be visible form a greater distance away during Hamidon Raids.

Inventions

• Added suppression to Invention temp power Ethereal Shift.
• The debuff from Achilles Heel: Chance for Resistance Debuff will now properly fade after 10 seconds, rather than lingering until a player was defeated or zoned.
• Kismet: Increased Accuracy Invention Enhancement was giving a scaling bonus based on the level of your target. This has been corrected—it now gives a flat bonus.

Rewards

• Characters will no longer stop earning Influence when playing in Supergroup mode after level 34.  Players level 29 and up will now earn 50% of the influence they would have received when in Supergroup mode.
• Fixed a long-standing bug with Experience Point and Influence distribution in teams with a large range of levels.
• High Level Family entities have had their reward scale lowered to be commensurate with the risk involved in the encounter.
• Salvage drops changed to more closely match the villain groups.

Sound

• Fiery Aura - Fire Shield & Plasma Shield. Looping sounds will now fade out after a short period of time.

Store

• Adjusted price on Rez inspirations to equal 3 regular inspirations.

Tailor

• Unlockable weapons for some weapon-based powersets have been added to the game. 
• Users can now choose to pay with influence or free costume token at the Tailor.
• Standard HeadDetail 1English Monocle added to male, female and huge characters.
• Many new chest details have been introduced:
  
  • Alien 1
  • Alien 2
  • BullsEye 2
  • Cyber Eye
  • Health
  • Lion
  • Mantis
  • Nuke
  • Power On
  • Question Mark
  • Recycle
  • Skull 3
  • Star 10
  • Star 11
  • Star 12
  • Star 13
  • Star 14
  • Swirl 3
  • Symbol 8
  • Symbol 9
  • Symbol 10
  • Tech Hole
  • Trash
• New Body Patterns sets
  
  • Arctic
  • Perplex
  • Thorn
  • Vandal

Tasks

• Flashback missions that do not allow players to leave immediately on completion will no longer fade to sepia upon completion.

CITY of HEROES

Powers

Accolades

• Decreased Geas of the Kind ones and Force of Nature defence debuff from 20% to 10%

Blasters

• Blaster / Archery / Explosive Arrow now deals full damage to players.
• Blaster / Archery / Blazing Arrow: Removed text in the long help stating that this power is less accurate than other Archery attacks. Blazing Arrow has the same accuracy bonus that the other Archery powers have.
• Blaster / Cold Mastery / Hibernate - Changed short help to indicate this power is a self hold, not a foe hold.
• Blaster / Devices / Auto Turret - Auto Turret for Blasters is now ‘Gun Drone’—it will fly, follow you around and fight at your side, much like Voltaic Sentinel. Note that enemies who use Auto Turrets have upgraded as well.
• Blaster / Devices / Cloaking Device - Removed the +DMG from the short help for this power. It offers no da